We must also keep a watchful eye out for 14th century Scientology and Precambrian Communism!
what, you didn’t know Mohammad was over 300 years old. 
There is an enormous difference between “letting people in” and “importing people.” For many european governments, the focus is on getting people to immigrate legally as opposed to doing so illegally.
I know that in Spain one of the reasons Eastern European immigrants were viewed better than northern-African ones a few years ago is that the Eastern European were viewed as “well, yeah, he’s not ‘legal’ now, but he’ll be as soon as his country gets into the EU, which will take no time.” An advantage of Latin Americans over anybody else is that they already speak Spanish (the dialectal variation isn’t greater than between Spain’s own dialects); a disadvantage, that even though there is a common cultural background, there isn’t an exact cultural identity, but don’t ask me whether an Uruguayan gets treated worse than a Gallego, both having moved to Catalonia - both will be considered “Castilian” by many Catalans. Some groups are also better than others at navigating our bureaucracy. In most locations (the exceptions are Madrid and somewhat Barcelona) there haven’t been immgrants for long enough to have the second generation be adult yet; they’re barely getting there. It’s kind of difficult to analyze “how does the second generation behave and how is it viewed” when it’s still viewed as “a kid.”
In my opinion there is a few factors that play a role here. As said above much of the Netherlands, especially the big cities, were/are post religious; we’ve always had some very conservative christians, but they live in small places and are more or less seen as quaint relics from earlier times. Our mainstream christians are very progressive and have really adapted to the tolerant culture (some of us like to think we have). There is a big scandal going on now beacause some priest refused to grant actively gay people communion, with the end result that the big catholic leaders are now condemning this practice and saying that all god’s children should be able to get communion. This is just to show that much of the indignation against religions is when they seem to be too intolerant.
This is also what the anti-immigrant parties (if you can call them that) usually become angry about. Imams saying homosexuals are lower than dogs and should be thrown from the top of buildings, imams refusing to shake hands with women, claims of the repression of women, etc. This of course often used to support their world view, and rather selectively so, but it can’t be denied that the immigrant minority keeps providing them with ammunition (not by the whole group, but incidents keep cropping up).
Another problem is that second generation youths (mostly Moroccans) are causing trouble. This is usually the kind of things you see in the poor neighboorhoods of most first world countries, with petty crime making people feel threatened, etc. the problem here is that this group is also identifiable by an ethnic background; so the perception is that it is Moroccan kids causing trouble and not poor kids causing trouble. These anti immigrant parties then connect this with the religion/culture and say it’s the culture that is the cause of the behavior (parents letting boys stay out at night, not caring what they do; islamic views on women resulting in women being called whore and stuff like that) and not socio-economic status. Note that I of course do not know the absolute truth and am just expressing my opinion when saying it is socio-economic circumstances rather than culture.
Another thing which might play a role is that unlike the christian conservatives, practically all dutch muslims live in urban areas. So the post-religious city people are now confronted by this foreign religion which clashes with what they are used to. These are also the people that vote for these parties (mostly white lower class people from the cities, where their old neighbourhoods are changing into little Marakesh). These people have been prone - for quite some time now - to give up on politics all together or vote for ‘protest parties’ that are not in government. The support for Wilders originates mostly from these groups, a lot of the people supporting him have previously voted for the left wing Socialist Party (or not voted at all). These people feel government is a sham and don’t trust the politician in The Hague*, this combined with seeing their neighbourhoods change makes them see Wilders as a possible solution.
One final thing to note is that the dutch political system makes it extremely easy to get representation. Currently Wilders holds 9 of the 150 seats, which is less than 7%, because of the proportional nature of the system a party with less than 7% of the votes can get a public stage and play a role in parliament. In the polls he is now polling at 24 seats, which is a lot by dutch standards, but still only 16%…Needless to say that in the US or the UK, - or in other words, if we had a similar system - there would be no chance of a party like this getting representation.
- They conveniently forget that Wilders has been working in Parliament for more than 20 years
A rose by any name… When was the last time there was a nationwide referendum in England or France or Sweden that would have allowed the people to express their approval or disapproval with the current levels of immigration, legal or illegal, and with the policies of “multiculturalism” that are pushed down people’s throats along the way? Why do you think something like that is not even on the agenda?
Just because in some places and times problems were smaller doesn’t mean that in other places and times they aren’t or wouldn’t be bigger. E.g. reputedly in Germany the Turkish immigrants have worked out much better than the Arabs and Africans in France and Sweden. And Italians in America worked out better still. Well, great, but this is little comfort for those on the receiving end of the problem in the more heavily affected countries.
As far as the past crimes of the Europeans in the colonies, who the hell cares? If your great grandfather committed crimes against somebody else 100 years ago, will you tolerate the great grandson of the somebody else committing crimes against you and generally causing problems now? If the Arab or Pakistani Muslims have a right to the integrity of their culture and prosperity of their community (as they surely do - just like all other groups and nations) don’t the European atheists have a right to the same?
After my people arrived in North America, immigrants the world over have been causing nothing but problems.
:rolleyes:
I’m wondering how the children on muslim immigrants assimilate…in places like Denmark (where a trip to the beach will show you women and men in various stages of nudity). The same with the Netherlands-most women are pretty casual about going topless.
Presumabley, this would be very offensive to muslims-but do their children feel the same way?
I dunno. The only people who’ve I heard express any discomfort about toplessness on the beach were American.
Well, if I were to generalize, it seems that they like to watch the naked ladies just as much as the other dutch boys/teens/men. It is just that they have little respect for these women. I have heard (in interviews on TV) how these muslim kids say that all dutch girls are whores for dressing/acting the way they do and these kids have no problem with, as long as their sister doesn’t do the same…also they won’t ever marry one of those girls, for a wife they’ll get someone from Morocco.
This actually what they said :(, even the muslim girls here (with head scarfs and everything) were to westernized for them. This also one thing the right wing parties are calling for: stopping immigrants bringing brides in from abroad.
I just read a previous question about non-muslim immigrants and must say that there is little to no mentioning of them. The Poles and Romanians are hardly ever mentioned in the poliotical debate.
Waitaminnit, now.
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All the governments in Europe are democracies. How can they do anything “against the manifest wishes of their people”?
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Having a liberal immigration policy is not the same thing as “importing” immigrants. You are implying that the governments of Europe are sending agents into Islamic countries to recruit immigrants.
I can’t speak for the rest of Europe, but there is a problem with some parts of the muslim community here in the UK.
However, as this programmeshowed the problem is largely due to the fact that the people who “speak on behalf” of the muslim community represent a very small part of the community.
Sadly our government doesn’t see this and is happy to talk to these so called"community leaders", who in reality hold more extreme views than those they claim to represent.
On a local level, I live in a city with a large immigrant population from many different backgrounds and the majority live in relative harmony, or at least in a peaceful state.
My main observation of some parts of the muslim community is that they seem to want to coerce the rest of the country into living the way they do. I accept that it is their right to eat and drink what they wish to, but I object when they expect me, as a non muslim, to abide by the same restrictions. As with all extreme views though this group only represents a small minority, but the problem lies in the fact that extremist groups of all kinds are the most vocal and the mainstream majority tend to be ignored or assumed to share these values by default.
I don’t think we should ban anything, but I think we need to expand freedom of speach to the point where all views can be debated honestly and without name calling and accusations of racism or islamophobia.
Part of the problem in Europe is that there is a sense of fear that if we dare to criticise Islam we will be threatened with violence. It is that aspect that needs to be dealt with, not banning headscarves or minarets. Sadly I don’t believe our government has the balls to stand up and say that it is ok to criticise those parts of any religion which we may find offensive or devisive to society.
One of the things that rankles me is when public buildings are used by muslim groups and men and women are segregated. This is quite clearly a form of discrimination, but is ignored to keep things quiet.
Excellent post there, football. I just meant to point out that the supposed link between the SP vote and the extreme right vote (ranging from CD in 1994 to LPF in 2003 to PVV right now) is never really borne out in any actual voting research. Most of the people voting for Wilders now are people who used to vote for the VVD or the CDA, and not SP voters. This branding of the left-wing lower class as a group of voters that is quite racist and will easily switch from a traditional left wing party to an anti-immigrant right wing party (and the branding of the Socialist Party as nationalist and what have you by extension), while convenient for some to reiterate, is not actually accurate.
Which means that your calling a daisy a rose won’t make it grow thorns…
It’s actually something that the government under Labor minister Albayrak has already realized - although recently the requirement that someone coming in to the Netherlands to marry someone already has a (fairly high) level of income has been overturned by (IIRC) the European Courts of Human Rights. However, this example illustrates that the image of left-wing governments (the Netherlands hasn’t seen one in over 30 years) shoving multi-cultural policies down people’s throats while right-wing parties clamor for reasonable restrictions on immigration is very far from accurate. In fact, some major restrictions have been imposed over the last decade or so (e.g. the Act on Asylum Seekers), and many of them were designed by Labor ministers.
As one of the non-muslim western brides brought in from abroad, may I just say that the fact that there is little to no mention of us does not mean that the laws passed under the Wilders Cabinet will not affect us – nor that the current climate si entirely a comfortable place to be… Poles are in a different category, legally, because they are EU, so they won’t have to deal with it. Not that the PVV won’t try, but they will not succeed unless they also succeed in pulling Holland out of the EU.
There is a lot of talk about who is voting for the PVV and I think the answer is not that the people doing it are necessarily racist or doing it for racist reasons. Now, a significant percentage of the Dutch have a negative notion about foreigners, but many of those are equal opportunity dislikers of allochtonen, without regard to skin color or religion. They dislike Poles and Romanians and Americans and everybody who is not Dutch, and many have a negative image of the Dutch from other provinces.
I think most of the people voting PVV just do not care about immigration issues very much, and absent those Wilders has presented himself as essentially libertarian. I think he also draws a fair amount of his support from people who are disenchanted with PvdA(Labor) and why not, the current leader of the party should (it seems to me) be voting VVD and as far as I can tell does not like the working class very much.
The marginalization of the working and lower middle class in Holland by the upper class has been going on slowly for some time and I really think this election is going to be an illustration of the maxim “Payback is hell”.
Anecdote, but my experience is that while probably the majority of PVV voters are indeed coming from either the economic “law and order” center-right or right (VVD, CDA), there is a significant group of ex - SP (and possibly PvdA) left voters too. I also don’t think that the image of the SP voter as disillusioned with “main stream politics” is completely undeserved, and the PVV is clearly playing to that crowd more than the SP is doing right now.
We may be able to get more precise data once the June election results are in. There are plenty of towns with traditionally very left wing (SP) voters (I suggest Doesburg and Oss off the top of my head) and it could be interesting to watch for shifts to the PVV there.
SP-voters are certainly more disillusioned than other voters, but there are plenty of ways to be disillusioned with mainstream politics without being anti-immigrant. Wilders addresses only the anti-immigrant crowd (and he’s pulling a lot of votes doing so, clearly); someone like Pim Fortuyn addressed much more the general malaise of the welfare state, which is something that Wilders does not really speak too. The SP does not have an anti-immigrant platform (although it has traditionally stressed some of the problematic elements of the multicultural society in a way that was quite uncommon if not downright taboo-breaking) and speaks to a completely different form of disillusionment.
That’ll be interesting, but aggregate election results will not allow us to really answer this question, even if it is disaggregated to the municipal level. You need voter-level information, such as the Dutch Parliamentary Election Studies (DPES) to find out where all these SP voters went (provided they’re going anywhere, of course - it’s a long time until 9 June). Until that time, any claims re: shifts in the electorate are mostly just unfounded conjecture.
anyway, I don’t believe this is the type of stuff that the OP is interested in so I’ll knock it off now.
Very true.
I myself voted for Fortuyn, for those exact reasons.
Dutch politics is a sham, a game played by the regent class where they play the population for fools. We do not live in a democracy and they do what they want.
It was good to see them squirm before Fortuyn, and after he was murdered, it felt good to vote for a dead man.
Wilders too is getting a lot of “protest votes” against the way we are governed.
Maybe this should be spun into a big bloody thread about Dutch politics, but even if you believe all that, I don’t see any reason to vote for Fortuyn (and especially not Wilders). For all their rhetoric against the “ruling elites”, there’s no indication that either of them would improve matters.